Removing an Amazon EKS add-on from a cluster

You can remove an Amazon EKS add-on from your cluster using eksctl, the AWS Management Console, or the AWS CLI.

When you remove an Amazon EKS add-on from a cluster:

• There is no downtime for the functionality that the add-on provides.

• If you are using IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA) and the add-on has an IAM role associated with it, the IAM role isn't removed.

• If you are using Pod Identities, any Pod Identity Assocataions owned by the add-on are deleted. If you specify the --preserve option to the AWS CLI, the assocations are preserved.

• Amazon EKS stops managing settings for the add-on.

• The console stops notifying you when new versions are available.

• You can't update the add-on using any AWS tools or APIs.

• You can choose to leave the add-on software on your cluster so that you can self-manage it, or you can remove the add-on software from your cluster. You should only remove the add-on software from your cluster if there are no resources on your cluster are dependent on the functionality that the add-on provides.

Prerequisites

Complete the following before you create an add-on:

• An existing Amazon EKS cluster. To deploy one, see Get started with Amazon EKS.

• Check if your add-on requires an IAM role. For more information, see

• Version 0.187.0 or later of the eksctl command line tool installed on your device or AWS CloudShell. To install or update eksctl, see Installation in the eksctl documentation..

Procedure

You can create an Amazon EKS add-on using eksctl, the AWS Management Console, or the AWS CLI. If the add-on requires an IAM role, see the details for the specific add-on in Available Amazon EKS add-ons from AWS for details about creating the role.

eksctl

To remove an Amazon EKS add-on using eksctl

1. Determine the current add-ons installed on your cluster. Replace my-cluster with the name of your cluster.

   eksctl get addon --cluster my-cluster
   

   An example output is as follows.

   NAME        VERSION              STATUS  ISSUES  IAMROLE  UPDATE AVAILABLE
   coredns     v1.8.7-eksbuild.2    ACTIVE  0
   kube-proxy  v1.23.7-eksbuild.1   ACTIVE  0                
   vpc-cni     v1.10.4-eksbuild.1   ACTIVE  0
   [...]

   Your output might look different, depending on which add-ons and versions that you have on your cluster.

2. Delete the add-on. Replace my-cluster with the name of your cluster and name-of-add-on with the name of the add-on returned in the output of the previous step that you want to remove. If you remove the --preserve option, in addition to Amazon EKS no longer managing the add-on, the add-on software is removed from your cluster.

   eksctl delete addon --cluster my-cluster --name name-of-addon --preserve
   

AWS Management Console

To delete an Amazon EKS add-on using the AWS Management Console

1. Open the Amazon EKS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/eks/home#/clusters.

2. In the left navigation pane, select Clusters, and then select the name of the cluster that you want to remove the Amazon EKS add-on for.

3. Choose the Add-ons tab.

4. Select the check box in the upper right of the add-on box and then choose Remove. Select Preserve on the cluster if you want Amazon EKS to stop managing settings for the add-on, but want to retain the add-on software on your cluster so that you can self-manage all of the settings for the add-on. Type the add-on name and then select Remove.

AWS CLI

Prerequisite

Version 0.187.0 or later of the eksctl command line tool installed on your device or AWS CloudShell. To install or update eksctl, see Installation in the eksctl documentation.

To delete an Amazon EKS add-on using the AWS CLI

1. See a list of installed add-ons. Replace my-cluster with the name of your cluster.

   aws eks list-addons --cluster-name my-cluster
   

   An example output is as follows.

   {
       "addons": [
           "coredns",
           "kube-proxy",
           "vpc-cni",
           "name-of-addon"
       ]
   }

2. Delete the installed add-on. Replace my-cluster with the name of your cluster and name-of-add-on with the name of the add-on that you want to remove. Removing --preserve removes the add-on software from your cluster.

   aws eks delete-addon --cluster-name my-cluster --addon-name name-of-addon --preserve
   

   The abbreviated example output is as follows.

   {
       "addon": {
           "addonName": "name-of-add-on",
           "clusterName": "my-cluster",
           "status": "DELETING",
   [...]

3. Check the status of the deletion. Replace my-cluster with the name of your cluster and name-of-addon with the name of the add-on that you're removing.

   aws eks describe-addon --cluster-name my-cluster --addon-name name-of-addon
   

   After the add-on is deleted, the example output is as follows.

   An error occurred (ResourceNotFoundException) when calling the DescribeAddon operation: No addon: name-of-addon found in cluster: my-cluster